


The human in my house

by xiushine



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5726869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiushine/pseuds/xiushine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Junmyeon doesn't remember how he died, but he's been a ghost in this house for a very long time. Nothing ever happens around the area, no one ever tries to move in. The house is too big, too lonely, even for a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The human in my house

 

Junmyeon doesn't remember how he died, but he's been a ghost in this house for a very long time. He suspects he might have drowned, since the bathroom is the only place in the house that he cannot approach, and the sound of an overflowing bathtub sometimes haunts him. Nothing ever happens around the area, no one ever tries to move in. The house is too big, too lonely, even for a ghost.

 

* * *

 

 

A man moves in on a Friday. He's very tall with angry eyebrows and he's not very smart. So far, Junmyeon has watched him trip over nothing three times and the man hasn't even been here for 24 hours. The man suspects that there is a ghost in this house that's trying to mess with him. Well, he's not completely wrong, but Junmyeon hasn't got anything to do with his tripping. That’s just his own stupidity. 

Junmyeon learns from the lease agreement dumped on the coffee table that the new tenant's name is Yifan. Junmyeon spends a few days silently observing Yifan, watching him clean up the house and unpack his stuff. Nobody visits him in the few days, no girlfriend, no family, and it puzzles Junmyeon as to why a single man would move to a house like this in the middle of nowhere. Still, Junmyeon is glad for the company, and entertainment, that Yifan provides.

After a week or two of Yifan settling in, Junmyeon decides to mess with him a little. He starts with the cliché rustling of curtains and rattling of cupboards that human movies are so fond of attributing to ghosts. Junmyeon watches as Yifan starts to get spooked, and laughs as Yifan lets out a strangled squawk at the sound of something getting knocked over, gangly arms flailing out as if ready to fight an invisible enemy. Junmyeon finds that for a man so large and tough-looking, Yifan is surprisingly (and hilariously) cowardly, and decides to have some mercy on the man by revealing himself in broad daylight rather than in the middle of the night.

He sits himself on the dining table and quietly waits for Yifan to notice him. The wait - a rather long one, as Junmyeon discovers that Yifan is also dense and oblivious to his surroundings - becomes rewarding when Yifan finally notices him. The loud scream that Yifan lets out and the dramatic way he falls to the ground has Junmyeon doubling over in laughter and almost falling off the table. When Yifan realises that the ghost isn't attacking and is just laughing at him, his fear subsides and he picks himself off the ground, frowning at the ghost.

"Who are you! What do you want!" Yifan demands, as if he wasn't just scared out of his wits moments ago.

Junmyeon rights himself and grins brightly, "I'm Kim Junmyeon! This was my house before I died so now I haunt it," he finishes cheerfully.

Yifan balks at that, at the easy way it had been said, as if it was no big deal at all. "Are you going to hurt me? Chase me out of this house?"

"Nah," Junmyeon begins, as he hops of the table and approaches Yifan, "If I wanted to, I would have done it by now. Plus, you're the first company I've had in years, I quite enjoy having you around."

Yifan looks doubtful at that, unsure if he should trust the ghost in his house. He briefly wonders if this is a prank, and some punk had just broken into his house to scare him. But they're standing face to face now, and Yifan can almost see through the translucent figure of Junmyeon's head, so he feels more inclined to believe that there really is a ghost in his new house. The ghost seems harmless though, and friendly, so Yifan doesn't feel a strong urge to immediately find a new house or hire an exorcist.

Instead, he simply says, "I'm Yifan," and receives a smile and a small nod in return.

Over the next few weeks, the friendship that grows between the two has Yifan feeling a strange sort of satisfaction. Strange because he had befriended a _ghost_ , and satisfactory because Junmyeon really has been excellent company, and Junmyeon is the best friend Yifan has had in a long time. Yifan had moved out to the edge of the woods on the outskirts of a small suburban town in an attempt to get away from the noisy crowds of the city that he had grown up in and "find himself". He was working on a new series of novels and trying to hone his painting skills, and he had hoped that some alone time, coupled with the serenity of nature that surrounded his new home, would help inspire him. Instead, he had met Junmyeon, and was sharing the house with him, but Yifan found that he didn't mind one bit.

Junmyeon was very easy to live with. For one, he didn't need to eat and he made very little noise. He minded his own business and floated around the house doing whatever it is ghosts do, and he never created trouble for Yifan. He doesn't invade Yifan's privacy, never phasing through the walls when Yifan enters a room and shuts the door. In return, when Yifan doesn't mind the company, he leaves the door wide open to signal so to Junmyeon. It's comfortable and familiar, and it feels like they've known each other for years

Afternoons usually see them in the study room, Yifan sitting at the desk working on his laptop, while Junmyeon lounges on the arm chair with a book. Occasionally Yifan looks up and bounces ideas off Junmyeon, or asks for help in expressing something, and Junmyeon always gives his best help. It helps that Junmyeon knows a lot of things from having read all the books in his family’s expansive library in the years that he’s been alone.

Some nights, Yifan comes home with a few rented movies and they watch it together, side by side on the plush sofa. Junmyeon always complains that Yifan makes terrible popcorn and Yifan scowls, telling Junmyeon not to waste his popcorn since he can't even digest food. But Junmyeon is adamant on stealing Yifan's terrible popcorn anyway-- just because he doesn't _need_ food doesn't mean he doesn't _want_ it.

When Yifan screams during a horror movie, Junmyeon cracks up at the irony of a man who has a literal ghost for a housemate and still startles at shoddy jumpscares. “It’s okay, Yifan,” Junmyeon coos as he pats Yifan’s head, “I’ll protect you from the scary monsters.”

 

* * *

 

 

Six months later, Yifan finishes his book, but he’s still no closer to mastering painting. Junmyeon watches as Yifan packs his suitcase for his book tour and makes snide remarks about how many hair products Yifan is bringing. Yifan throws a tube of moisturiser at Junmyeon, making him laugh harder when it flies right through his body. Despite his teasing, Junmyeon also fusses over Yifan, telling him to bring cold medication and aspirins and antiseptics, as if Yifan will be gone for months to a rural village with no access to nearby pharmacies. Still, Yifan brings a small first aid kit to appease Junmyeon.

It’s the first time in months that Junmyeon will be alone since Yifan moved in, and he irrationally worries that Yifan won’t come back to him. Of course, Yifan doesn’t _belong_ to Junmyeon, but now that he’s had a feel of company after so long a solitude, Junmyeon can’t bear the thought of being lonely again. He says nothing though, because he doesn’t want to feel like a burden on Yifan, and besides, it’s not like Yifan would cancel his book tour just to stay with him. Yifan had asked if Junmyeon wanted to come along, to be his unseen companion in what would undoubtedly be a tiring and tedious tour, but Junmyeon had once tried to travel away from the house and discovered that he couldn’t go beyond a certain distance, so even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.

In the two weeks that Yifan is gone, Junmyeon tries to entertain himself as best he can. After all, he had been alone for decades before Yifan had showed up, so surely he could manage two weeks. He finishes reading the new manga series Yifan had ordered for him before he left, tries tending to the overgrown excuse for a garden in his backyard, and floats around the house for a bit. But at the end of two weeks, Yifan does not return.

Junmyeon tries not to worry. He reasons that the book tour might have gone really well, so they decided to extend it, or maybe Yifan’s flight back got delayed. Either way, Junmyeon waits patiently for the next few days.

But a week passes, and there is still no news from Yifan. On impulse, he turns on the television and seeks out the news. What he had least expected to find was a story on the memorials dedicated to “Beloved Author Wu Yifan” outside of several bookstores. To say that Junmyeon was shocked would be an understatement, and Junmyeon thinks that if he had a corporeal body, he would faint. Distantly, he’s aware of the remote control clattering loudly as it lands on the floor, having fallen through Junmyeon’s dematerialising hand. He feels as though his ghostly form is expanding outwards from his chest, as if his very soul is crying out for Yifan. Junmyeon yearns to cry, but his ghostly form cannot, and he feels worse because of it, as if he isn’t paying the proper respect to Yifan.

The last thing Yifan had said to him echoes in Junmyeon’s mind.

_Bye, Junmyeon._

 

* * *

 

 

In the weeks that followed. he had managed to forget once. He had floated by the canvas left out on the porch to dry, lips curling upward in a devious smirk as he turned to shout an insult into the house. “Hey! Your painting is really ug-,” The words caught in his throat as the memory of Yifan’s death came flooding back, and he felt the sorrow like a punch in the gut. He turned back to the painting, landing softly as he sat before the propped up canvas. He could remember the day Yifan had painted it, it was supposed to be a self-portrait of the two of them. “It’s more sentimental than a photograph!” Yifan had declared, not that Junmyeon could have been caught on camera anyway. As silly as it had seemed to Junmyeon at the time, he still posed and smiled for Yifan, watching fondly as Yifan had on a look of absolute concentration, blue paint smudged on his left cheek.

‘ _It really is an awful painting,'_ Junmyeon thinks, looking over the uneven eyes and lopsided face structures that Yifan had so spectacularly failed in portraying. He smiles as he reaches out to touch the painted image of Yifan’s face, the depiction so jarring in comparison to the soft features that Junmyeon had come to know. ‘ _I wish I could see you again, Yifan.’_

 

* * *

 

After a month, Junmyeon has lost hope of ever seeing Yifan again. After all, if Junmyeon had been tied to this house after dying here, it stands to reason that Yifan’s ghost, if there was one, would be stuck wherever he had died too. Still, he lingers around the front door, almost as if he was unconsciously still waiting for Yifan to come home, for him to walk through the door, all noisy and clumsy. 

Knocks on the door startle Junmyeon out of his trance. He stares at the door in confusion, as zoned out as he had been, Junmyeon is sure he would have noticed the unmistakable warmth of a human life force if someone had approached the house. Even now, as he faces the door, Junmyeon detects no such warmth, and it spooks him a little. When he finally opens the door however, all his fear flies away as he takes in the sight of Yifan standing before him, his tall body pale and translucent. Junmyeon unabashedly throws himself into Yifan’s arms. The smiles they exchange are equally bright.

“Hello, Junmyeon.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is my pride and joy, feel free to ask about my headcannons on this universe and the workings of Junmyeon's ghostliness, there was a lot that I wasn't able to fit into the story. 
> 
> I can be found on Twitter (@xiushine_), and on Tumblr (xiushine.tumblr.com) !


End file.
